RURAL DEPOPULATION 67 



to the consequent loss of employment and rural depopulation. But 



small though the acreage may have been, it was considerable in 



proportion to the cultivated area, and the suffering was undeniably 



great. The distress was aggravated by the disbanding of the great 



retinues which had been maintained in feudal households, and by 



the consequent disturbance of the labour market. It was still 



more intensified by the suppression of the monasteries (1536-42). 



Not only were a very large number of dependents deprived of their 



hveUhood, but enclosures on the old ecclesiastical estates were 



carried out with pecuhar harshness. The new owners among whom 



the monastic lands were distributed, bound by no sentimental tie 



to the existing tenants, claimed that the royal grant annulled all 



titles derived from the previous owners, entered on their possessions 



as though they were vacant of leaseholders or copyholders, and 



enclosed the land for sheep-runs. The doggerel ballad, " Vox 



Popuh, Vox Dei " (1549),^ laments the consequences of the change 



of ownership : 



" We have shut away all cloisters, 

 But stiU we keep extortioners : 

 We have taken their lands for their abuse, 

 But we have converted them to a worse use." 



Voluntary agreements for the valuation and commutation of 

 rights of common were often entered into between tenants and 

 landowners, and bargains were struck on equitable terms. Instances 

 like that given in the following extract from Kennet's Parochial 

 Antiquities ^ might be indefinitely multipHed : " The said Edmund 

 Rede, Esquire granted and confirmed to Thomas Billyngdon one close 

 in AdjTigrave, in consideration whereof the said Thomas Billyngdon 

 quitted and resigned his right to the free pasturage of four oxen to 

 feed with the cattle of the said Edmund Rede and all right to any 

 common in the said pasture or inlandys of the said Edmund." 

 Here in 1437 was the principle of commutation of rights of common 

 accepted and enforced by private contract. In other cases a 

 semblance of agreement may have been secured by threats. But 

 justice was not always perverted in the interests of landlords. 

 Attempted acts of oppression were frequently checked by the 

 courts of law. As an instance may be quoted the proposed en- 

 closure of the common-fields at Welcombe, near Stratford-on- 



^ Ballads from MSS. II. 538-41. The spelling is modernized. (Publication 

 of the BaUad Society, vol. i. p. 139.) 

 2 Vol. ii. 324. 



